


Mag7 Commentfic

by lazaefair



Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016), 좋은 놈 나쁜 놈 이상한 놈 | The Good The Bad The Weird (2008)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Not!Fic, background Emma Cullen/Sam Chisolm, commentfic, prompt fills
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2019-08-08 12:33:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 10,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16429490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazaefair/pseuds/lazaefair
Summary: Started as fills for theMag7 Pillowfort 3-sentence fic challenge, is now the general collecting place for ficlets, commentfics, not!fics, and prompt fills. Prompts, pairings and tags to be added with each update.





	1. Emma & Goodnight, nightmare

"Emma," and then, "Help me."

Three words to bring her flying into the sickroom - if the hoarse, garbled shouting that had suddenly sliced through the stillness of the sleeping farmhouse hadn't already been enough - three words that she would be prepared to swear had never once passed through Billy Rocks' lips for the entirety of their acquaintance up until this very instant, no matter how silently friendly they'd become; but even the mountain eventually came to Mohammed, she supposes.

He's holding Goodnight down by the shoulders when she stumbles in, and she sees at once the problem: weakened as he is by his own wounds, Billy doesn't quite have the strength to prevent his companion from doing further grievous injury to himself with his wild thrashing. _Nightmare_ , she thinks, a familiar enough specter to them all since the battle, but she's never seen it this bad.

She's by his side in a moment, and throws herself across Goodnight's legs without a second thought. 


	2. Horne, reparations

Jack Horne does many things. He rides. He hunts. He prays. He smokes, and laughs, and sings. He helps the Seven bring down criminals and protect towns. 

And he whittles. 

Whenever they have a moment of peace, it's never more than a minute before he's dipping into one of his many pockets for the latest bit of wood, tiny in his enormous hands, slowly taking shape as he leaves a trail of wood shavings wherever he goes.

If the other six ever notice anything unusual, they don't comment - but in a bunch as eagle-eyed as that one, it surely doesn't escape observation that the little figures that emerge under Horne's knife are always of the same creature: beak, feathered body, two wings. In flight, at rest, nesting, picking something off the ground, standing alert. Horne leaves them behind wherever they camp - sitting atop miniature cairns built out of pebbles or nestled among leaves and flowers, tucked into the roots of a tree or resting in the shade of a larger rock, where they're less likely to be trampled by stray boot or errant horse.

The only words Jack ever says to anybody about them are these:

"Two hundred 'n seventy-six more to go," he says with an unpracticed, hesitant smile, looking up into the shadowed face of Red Harvest. Red looks down at him, backlit by a brilliant afternoon sun, as Horne crouches down to place his latest figure into a thatch of green river grass by the creek they've stopped by. 

Neither of them say anything for a long while. Then Red nods, eyes solemn, and crouches down next to Horne. He reaches out with two fingers, and Jack sees that they're daubed in white clay paint. Three swipes, and the little crow becomes covered in white as well. 

"For mourning," Red says, meeting Jack's eyes. "And for peace."

Jack has to swallow before he can speak. "Thank you kindly," he says, finally. They rise, and walk away from the creek bank together.


	3. Vasquez/Faraday, Maria

The theater's in a reconstructed gothic monstrosity of an old church, so everything but the auditorium is a rabbit warren of little stone rooms and narrow hallways, all steep stairs and tight corners and dodgy fluorescent lights so you quickly lose track of whether you're in the basement or on the third floor, whether you're headed to the sound booth or to the backstage wings. Creepy as fuck when the place is empty, yep, but it's not empty now. It's opening night, actually, so Vasquez is dodging actors and dancers and crew and musicians, all rushing around half in costume or hauling instruments, a dizzying whirl of spandexed limbs and wigs and microphones and sheet music and laughter.

It's chaos in a maze, but somehow Josh is _still_ not hard to find. You just have to follow the echoing bellows of "MARIA, MARIA MARIA, _MARIIIIIIIIIIIAAAA_ ALL THE BEAUTIFUL SOUNDS OF THE _WOOOOORLD_ IN A SINGLE _WOOOOOOORD--"_ winding through the hallways and you'll eventually end up in a closet of a dressing room somewhere, crammed with costumes and mirrors and at least three more people than should be in there. (Fire code, shmire code. This is _theater.)_

"Cabrón," Vasquez says, leaning against the rickety door frame with a wolfish smile, "it's opening fucking night and I still cannot understand why Sam cast you in this show. Is it because you give good head or what?"

"The best, and you fuckin' know it," Josh says, dressed in nothing but tight boxer briefs (lime green today, dear god, he's lucky Vasquez loves him) and the elastic waist band for a mic transmitter. He grins like the very devil as he meets Vasquez's eyes in his mirror. "They call me ol' golden throat Faraday, they do--"

"Whoever they are, they are dirty liars." 

"Awww, you know you love me," Josh says, making kissy faces at him. Seated at the other mirror with Billy brandishing a makeup brush over him, Goody laughs. Billy just rolls his eyes.

"How much time we got, V?" Goody asks genially.

"Fifteen minutes to circle," Vasquez says, just as his headset squawks to life in his ear. "Correction, ten minutes to circle. Sam and Emma have something special planned for tonight."

"It better not be anything to make you cry," Billy says to Goody. "I'm not going to redo your eyeliner again." (This is also a lie, but nobody calls him on out it.) 

Josh is now scowling into his mirror as he clips his mic into his wig. "Fuck, I ain't gonna be ready in ten minutes. You're the stage manager, can't you stall for time?"

Vasquez sighs. "Güero...anyone ever tell you, you’re a disgrace to your entire profession?"


	4. Billy/Goodnight, wolves

“Well, ain’t _you_ a likely-lookin’ one.”

The wolf has a furry chin. It’s neatly trimmed and _yellow_ , the hair growing in thicker than what any of the men in the village can manage. He’s dressed in strange, tight clothing, fitted closely to his waist and long legs. And he has pale skin, paler than even the snow maidens in the fairy stories Grandmother likes to tell when Byeung-rok visits her with his basket of good things to eat. 

The basket had been packed lovingly by his sisters and mother, but he’s late today. It’s dark already, and the fir trees have shadowed what remains of the sunset. And everyone knows that wolves hunt at night. 

Still, he faces the wolf with his head high, straightening his back, dropping his center of gravity, letting his red coat settle more securely on his shoulders. Slowly so the wolf can’t see the movement with his unearthly light eyes, Byeung-rok moves his right hand toward the knife tucked into the wide sleeve. 

The wolf cocks his head and moves toward him, hands shoved in his pockets, with the rolling gait that means he also spends a lot of time riding horses. “Relax, kid, I ain’t gonna eat you.”

Now that he’s closer, Byeung-rok can see that his high-boned cheeks are smooth, and the forehead under his wide-brimmed hat is unlined. Despite the danger, Byeung-rok snorts. “Huh. You’re not actually older than me.”

“Watch it.” One corner of the wolf’s mouth curls up, lifting his lip just enough to show a single sharp canine, flashing white in the dusk. “You’d still make a mighty delicious morsel for any creature who took a shine to you, wanderin’ around all by your lonesome like this. All...ripe. For the takin’.”

The way his voice caresses those last words, the liquid vowels and soft consonants, goes straight to Byeung-rok’s gut. He suppresses a shiver, and wonders how it took him so long to notice that they are not speaking the same language, yet somehow understand each other perfectly. He carefully wraps his fingers around the knife hilt, still hidden within folds of red cloth. Looks the wolf in the eye. “I won’t digest easily.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that,” the wolf says. He cuts his gaze down to Byeung-rok’s hand, lazily, like he _knows_. “But as I said.” Eyes back up again, another step closer, close enough for Byeung-rok to smell the foreign tobacco on his clothes, the wild musk of his skin and sweat. Byeung-rok’s lips part without him commanding them to do so. And the wolf’s grin blocks out the world. “I’m not here to eat you.”


	5. Goodnight/Billy, fishing

Lulled by the late afternoon sun, the humid air, and the hypnotic patterns of reflected light dancing on the lake surface, Billy says without thinking, "There are people on islands, in the Pacific...they fish with spears."

He snaps his mouth shut as soon as he realizes - fingers tightening on his hastily whittled fishing pole, hunching his shoulders and staring straight ahead as he waits for his fancy new white companion, with his fancy words and fancier college education (Robicheaux had let that slip the _second day_ of their acquaintance) to chime in with probably an entire book's worth of knowledge about the Pacific islands and the people who lived on them. Making Billy feel like when he was learning English at the impatient hands of his former masters all over again - slow, ignorant, stupid.

But instead—

"You don't say? Must be quite a sight, all right. Did you stop at any of them islands when you came over?"

Billy turns his head to find Robicheaux's eyes on him, all alight with eagerness. He's leaning forward, face open and bright, exactly like he's... _interested_ in what Billy has to say. Is _waiting_ for Billy to keep talking. 

It's a response so foreign to Billy, his mind goes blank for a moment and all he can do is stare back (and suddenly, unaccountably notice just how blue those eyes are).

"I...yes," he says slowly, finally managing to collect himself enough to answer the question. "Had an uncle who went to Hawaii...he took me to the village he lived in. The women go out at night, with coconut leaf torches. That's when the fish come in with the tides."

Robicheaux nods, and— _smiles._ In genuine wonder, as far as Billy can tell. "Wow. Fire and water, life and death. Like I said, must've been somethin' else to see."

"It was," Billy says, and turns back to his pole, effectively ending the conversation. But his shoulders loosen up considerably. And when he catches two fishes to Robicheaux's one, he offers to share.


	6. Billy & Emma, cooking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Star Trek AU!

“You do it. That thing definitely knows when it’s me programming it,” Emma complains, unceremoniously stripping off her gold uniform shirt and flopping into her bunk. 

“Who’s pushing the buttons shouldn’t make any difference,” Billy says, but he heads over to the replicator anyway and dials up a decent Sauvignon blanc, wine glasses and all. Glances back at the prone Emma, facedown in her pillow, and makes the executive decision to dial up the largest serving of macaroni and cheese the replicator will allow. Melted cheddar, roasted garlic, breadcrumbs, the lot.

Emma groans theatrically - pornographically - when it materializes and the smell slowly wafts over to her. “Oh my sweet lord, I swear to Christ you are pure, unadulterated magic, Billy Rocks.”

“You willing to swear to that in front of the command staff? How about Faraday?” Billy says, smiling faintly as he dishes the mac ‘n cheese into two bowls.

“Do not,” Emma jabs a vicious finger at him, “so much as breathe a hint of that menace’s name in my presence right now.”

“Thought that’s why you invited me over after shift.”

“Yeah, but I need more booze in me first. Gimme.” 

“Get it yourself.”

Emma’s head comes up, gaze sharpening on Billy until he raises his eyebrows back at her. She’s one of the very few who know about his past on Orion - and ought to know perfectly well that the only person he’s willing to serve in the entire galaxy is Goody.

“Right, right. I forgot. Sorry.”


	7. Goody/Billy, Goody/Sam, Wedding Planner AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by [Trams](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trams/pseuds/Trams).

The first time they meet, Billy’s married to his job, and Goody’s getting married to Sam Chisolm.

So it’s not love at first sight or anything like that, because Billy doesn’t have the time and definitely isn’t looking. And Goody might be a gutless coward, but even he’s not craven enough to break his vows to the man who hauled him out of the sandbox and then the gutter, who saved his life twice over, and even saw enough worth in him to propose marriage because then Goody could be on Sam’s health insurance. The sex ain’t bad, either.

So when Sam gets held up at work and texts Goody to go ahead to their appointment with Billy Rocks, he goes. It’s the least he can do. Swallows two anti-anxiety pills, grips the steering wheel at ten and two, settles his silk tie more firmly around his neck before he steps into an impossibly tasteful waiting room fifteen minutes early. It’s sleek and minimalistic, more like one of those fancy-pants tech firms than the kind of gaudy excess you’d expect from a wedding planner who mostly caters to the nouveau riche with more money than sense. Goody cautiously approves.

The man himself, when he appears, matches the decor down to his abstract silver cufflinks and slim-cut lapels. Delicate pearl-grey tie, shock of raven hair, cheekbones for days. He cuts a mighty fine contrast to the clients accompanying him, a shrill and angry couple who clearly believe wholeheartedly in wearing their wealth as loudly as possible. Goody watches, increasingly impressed, as he smoothly rejects their red-faced demands, sidesteps their threats, steers them towards suggestions more plausibly executable on this plane of reality, makes them think it was all their idea, and finally sends them away gushing his praises in the space of a five-minute conversation.

“That, my friend, was truly a thing of beauty and an honor to witness,” Goody says when Rocks turns to him.

The planner inclines his head. “Apologies that you had to witness it at all. You are Goodnight Robicheaux, I presume?” he asks before Goody can offer a rebuttal.

“Guilty as charged, Mr. Rocks.”

“Please, call me Billy.” He holds his hand out.

Billy has the kind of grip and physical grace that makes Goody immediately think _trained._ And then, watching the way he moves as they head to his office - calmly alert, obviously holding himself in a state of relaxed stillness - in Goody’s previous career, his instincts might have upgraded Billy to _potential threat._ Get a hold of yourself, he scolds himself as he settles into a sleek leather chair. The man’s a fucking wedding planner. He’s here to plan your fucking wedding.

(And that’s exactly the truth, and exactly how the story proceeds, unremarked and unremarkable. At least, up to the point where Emma Cullen walks back into Sam’s life with her tale of corporate espionage and righteous revenge, towing a traveling circus’-worth of troublemaking characters behind her, and it all goes to hell in a flower girl’s dainty pink wicker handbasket. Rings are bought, given, and returned. Kisses are laid upon the wrong people entirely. The cake gets blown up. And nobody escapes with their pocket squares intact. But that’s a story for another day.)

 

————————

 

Short continuation inspired by this photo of Ethan Hawke, originally posted by [maggie-ravenhawke:](https://lazaefair.tumblr.com/post/183628549147/you-come-to-my-house-and-you-slap-me-in-the)

[](http://i.imgur.com/rGKe68O)

In the end - after all the chaos and drama and exploded cakes - it comes down to just the two of them. Like it was in the beginning. Standing outside Rose Creek Chapel, escaped for the moment from the mob of confused guests inside, surrounded by lush green leaves and perfumed flowers - even twittering birds in the shrubbery.

It did turn out to be a beautiful spring afternoon after all. Just like Goody always dreamed of for his wedding day.

“You got a little...” Sam reaches out, thumbs a smear of icing off Goody’s cheek. His touch is warm, easy. Familiar.

“Thanks,” Goody says. Then, “I’m sorry.”

Sam’s hand lingers for a long moment in a barely-there caress against Goody’s jaw. Affectionate, still, after everything, and Goody can’t help the unhappy squeeze in his heart, but— Sam shakes his head.

“You came back,” he says. “Brought me the evidence Emma needed to take Bogue down. Right there on the damn altar steps, even.”

“We did put on quite the show, didn’t we?”

“We both know they’ll all be jawin’ about this day for years to come.” Sam gives him a conspiratorial grin, Goody smiles crookedly in response. God damn, does he love this man.

Just ain’t _in_ love with him, and that’d been, oh, about 33% of their problems in the past action-packed month. (Another 33% is currently busy being hauled away in handcuffs along with his goons. The remaining 33% are waiting patiently for Sam and Goody in the chapel and in the car, respectively.)

And the last 1% is, well. Standing in front of Goody in his beautifully tailored wedding suit and haloed by sunlight, looking the kind of handsome that puts you in mind of knights and patricians. Heroes from a bygone age. And he’s looking at Goody with the same fondness from years ago, unchanged by blood or bullets, or tears, or far too many bottles of booze. Too noble by half.

“Never got the chance to tell you,” he’s saying now. “You look gorgeous in that suit. Pretty as any bridegroom ever walked down the aisle.”

“Not as pretty as Miz Emma will be when you come back here in a year. Lucky gal,” Goody says as steady and matter-of-fact as he can, just to watch that noble profile duck down, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly.

“Gonna take more than a year to finish mourning her husband, but I admire your optimism. And you’re sellin’ yourself short again.” Sam’s lips curl up, sly, eyes twinkling. “You’ll want to curb a bad habit like that around Billy, lest he take more extreme measures to set you straight on that score. Maybe he’ll even succeed where I failed.”

“You didn’t...Jesus _wept,_ Sam,” and Goody can’t stand it anymore. He closes the distance between them, settling into the circle of Sam’s arms with the sweet ease of familiarity, if not passion. “I’d be dead twice over if not for you, and you know it. I got half a mind to go find Emma and give her the exact same advice - make sure she makes _you_ sure that whatever failures you think you got on your conscience, I ain’t one of them.”

Sam just looks down at him, half-smile on his face. Finally says, “Duly noted,” at the same time Goody asks, “Last one, for old times’ sake?”

Sam nods once and leans in. “For old times’ sake.”

The kiss ain’t anything fancy. Short and chaste, but heavy with memory. Bittersweet’s the word for it - a fine word, and a relatable one. When they part and let go of each other, stepping back slowly, Goody feels all the lighter for it.

“I’m glad we found something in the ashes worth keeping,” he says.

Sam pauses, having already started to turn back towards the chapel. But then he smiles, big and wide and truly unburdened for the first time Goody can remember. “Yeah, we’ll be all right. Good luck, Goody. I’ll see you around.”

“The same to you, darlin’,” Goody says and turns his face towards the parking lot. Where Billy Rocks is waiting for him, and their newest future together.


	8. Goody/Billy, shibari (M)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by this [jaw-droppingly gorgeous sketch by ](https://lazaefair.tumblr.com/post/182177045152/whereverigobillygoes-some-good-old-fashioned)[whereverigobillygoes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whereverigobillygoes/pseuds/whereverigobillygoes). (Mildly NSFW)

The flush stains Goody’s pale skin the same way pink-blushed petals used to unfurl in the centers of the creamy-white chrysanthemums that covered Billy’s _halmeoni’s_ garden across the sea. An indescribably delicate wash of color radiating out from the points of Goody’s elbows and knees, from the places where he’s pressed against the bare wood floor. Tinting his ears, spilling down the sides of his neck. Spreading across the bridge of his nose and the apple of the cheek visible to Billy when Goody turns his head to the side. If he were to cut the ropes right now, he knows he’d see the same red flush engraved in criss-crossing lines all over the body spread out beneath him.

Billy never learned to paint. He left Korea too soon for that, and his education in the bright golden land of _Geum San_ was of a rougher kind by far. He never learned the sweep of ink and water across rice paper, the graceful movement of fine goat-hair brushes over scrolled silk. But he can paint in blood. The life force running just under the skin, his watercolors. Muscle and bone, his canvas.

It doesn’t matter that he can’t hang this naked display of love and trust on a wall somewhere. These precious minutes carved out of their day to allow Billy to exert control over _something_ in his life after hours and hours of absorbing the taunts and stares, the suspicions and patronizing remarks, unable to do anything he wants to do about it. It’s a chance to feel someone’s unalloyed surrender under his hands. The gift of power.

(“Thank you,” Billy had whispered the last time they’d done this, after he’d untied Goody and cleaned them both up and hauled them onto the bed.

Goody dismissed his thanks. “Of all people, you ought to know just how much I get out of it,” he said, stretching like a cat while Billy scratched his scalp. “Nothin’ at all altruistic about me, cher.”

“Again with the five-dollar words,” Billy said, but only because he didn’t know how to say out loud the sheer goddamn gratitude clogging up his throat.)

He ties off another knot in the small of Goody’s back and presses down next to it, satisfied to see the skin return to healthy pink as soon as he lifts his thumb. 

“All right?” he asks.

It takes Goody a long moment to respond, lips slowly parting and dark lashes fluttering over those beautifully flushed cheeks, like a dreamer rising out of a deep sleep. 

“Yeah,” he rasps, no more than a breath, and Billy smiles. 


	9. Goody/Billy, breathplay (E)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by another [whereverigobillygoes kink sketch.](https://lazaefair.tumblr.com/post/182585606067/whereverigobillygoes-just-some-breathplay) (Mildly NSFW)

Choke him slow.

He likes to be eased into it. Likes the soft, easy descent. Breaths growing smaller and smaller, eyes growing heavier, like going to sleep. Billy rolls his hips at an unyielding pace through it all, commanding his muscles to remain steady as he gradually draws the cord tighter - ruthlessly puts aside the toe-curling pleasure of being inside Goody while he watches and tracks the rise and fall of Goody’s chest, the deep red staining his face and neck.

(He learned to kill this way years ago. Garrotes and strangleholds, silent murders in the houses of rich men. Billy’s hands remember.)

He has to bite the inside of his cheek when Goody’s eyes roll back in his head, eyelashes fluttering. Billy’s breathing deeply himself, measuring time by the slow, shallow rocking in and out of Goody’s slick hole. Enthralled by Goody’s wet mouth, all slack with bliss. The clutch and twitch of his body around Billy’s cock, _fuck._

It’s just another fraction of a fraction of an inch to cut his breath off entirely.

(Four seconds to unconsciousness. Two minutes to death. Billy’s mind remembers.)

Three more slow thrusts - exactly three seconds, dizzy with anticipation - and then he releases the cord. Fucks back in fast and hard, plants a hand next to Goody’s head and reaches down with the other to strip his cock equally fast, all at once. Greedily watching Goody’s eyes fly open - that shocked, burning, _blazing_ blue - that red mouth opening wide to gulp air in a long, sobbing, rising gasp - back arching, legs bruising Billy’s waist, cock pulsing _hard,_ striping creamy-white come all over stomach and chest - ass clamping down savagely enough to set off flashes in Billy’s vision—

“Fuck, Goody,” he chokes out, adoring and unashamed, and comes with Goody’s wrecked voice still ringing in his ears.


	10. Goodnight & Faraday, Good Omens AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by [VillaKulla and this excellent brainstorm](https://villa-kulla.tumblr.com/post/178991028036/lazaefair-lazaefair-villa-kulla-im-sure) on Tumblr.

Faraday smirks down at Goody, and bless him to Heaven for the extra four inches of height he clearly wheedled out of the Infernal Bureaucracy when they were issuing the bodies for this little topside jaunt. Next to them, a dozen baby demons shift restlessly in their ragged offensive line, the hot pinpricks of their stares burning into Goody’s neck like, well, two dozen hot little pins. Then the smirk fades from Faraday’s face, and – Goody sets his jaw because he knows, he _knows_ what’s about to come out of that insufferable mouth-– 

“Two thousand, three hundred and forty-six angels and holy Judean warriors disintegrated at the Battle of Megiddo.”

Faraday flicks his wrist showily, all the more dramatic in his black-on-black suit, gesturing at Goody. The screaming of the cicadas in the trees around them blends seamlessly in with the rising buzz in Goody’s ears. _Please, no. Don’t say it._

“This is one of Beelzebub’s unholy sharpshooters. Dubbed…the Angel of Death.”

Tittering laughter ripples down the line, Satan bless it, and Goody _really_ hadn’t missed what passes for a sense of humor among demonkind. It’s possibly the only good thing about Billy not being here at the moment.

“Do what he does. He’s a legend!” And there it is, Faraday turning back to him, yellow slit-pupiled eyes flaring to a painful gold. Goody can feel his own eyes flash red behind his sunglasses in response. “Or is that all you are?” Faraday finishes in an undertone, shoving the Mk 12 Mod 1 rifle at his chest, until Goody has no choice but to grasp it, silver-engraved sigils whispering under his fingers.

At Megiddo, it’d been cursed arrows, until he ran out of those and had to shape curses out of raw will, pulling them into existence and casting them with his bare hands. Modern firearms make things more efficient - less exhausting - even if their wielders still have to suffuse each gun’s workings with their own power. 

_Fuck you to hell and back,_ he wants to hiss, but doesn’t, because that’s the kind of profanity a human would use. Faraday and Vasquez, those pestilent motherfuckers, would just take it as more proof.

So he lifts the rifle up and sets it against his shoulder, freezing cold metal bleeding ice through his silk shirt. Sights through the scope down yards and yards of sun-blasted earth. Takes a breath he doesn’t need. Squeezes the trigger softly - so softly - to keep himself from bracing for the punch of power leaving his body when the bullets fly. Curses every last angel-shaped dummy target into nonexistence. 

One shot each.

“Satan _bless.”_

“That’s some fancy shooting right there!”

Smoke curls up from the blackened sigils under Goody’s fingers and the rifle becomes cold enough to burn. He shoves it back at Faraday before he can drop the infernal thing, holding himself tight to stave off the shakes he knows will be appearing shortly on the horizon. Turns on his heel and gets the fuck out of there, and to Heaven with Faraday if he discorporates him for it. Goody’d dearly like to see him try.

But he remains corporeal all the way out of the shooting range. “Told ya,” he hears Faraday say to the baby demons, fading into the distance as he swings into the parking lot, making a beeline for the Bentley.

He has to find Billy. Now.


	11. Of Mice And Men AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not!fic inspired by [oceluna's gorgeous Southern Gothic AU moodboard.](https://lazaefair.tumblr.com/post/180596597162/fontainebleau22-oddly-drawn-thoughtss-the)

…oh nooooo, I just thought of something horrible: The Mag7 “Of Mice And Men” AU. Basically the same plot, but Rose Creek is the name of the ranch where these hard-bitten, migrant ranch hands all drift to, and somehow it ends in _even more_ tragedy and human suffering.

Billy and Goody are the inseparable pair of itinerant workers who get dropped off by bus, who have a dream of turning the money from this contract into a farm all their own, with a little cozy farmhouse and a garden and rabbits. Goody’s a shellshocked veteran of World War I, Billy’s an undocumented immigrant who entered the country sometime after the Oriental Exclusion Act was passed in 1924. Billy’s hoping that being able to live on a farm on their own, in a house of their own, will give Goody the peace that will help ease his PTSD.

Sam is a mule skinner, respected as the “prince of the ranch”, the kind of natural leader that draws all the ranch hands to him. He served with Goody in the Great War and is the one who got them this job after the incident in Volcano Springs where Billy had to kill a white man who attacked him. Sam’s the only one who knows about Goody and Billy’s relationship to start with. And he has history with Bogue, though Bogue doesn’t remember or recognize him.

Bogue is the ranch superintendent and obviously still the villain of the piece. Tyrannical, grasping, jealous, underpays everyone, etc. etc. At some point in the past, he killed Matthew Cullen and forced Emma to marry him.

Which, of course, makes Emma “The Wife” - only with more agency and sympathy than Curley’s Wife, because this is my AU and I’ll do as I please with it. She’s the one who instigates the plot to murder Bogue and take over the ranch. Teddy’s a young ranch hand who follows her around and generally provides opportunities for exposition as everyone explains things to him.

Jack Horne’s the aging ranch hand who lost his wife and children in an unspecified tragic accident, and basically only exists to care for his dog now (nicknamed Axe).

Faraday plays the part of the hard-drinking, hard-partying, hard-eyed migrant worker to the hilt, regularly visiting the nearby town - and coaxing the other hands to go with him - to spend all his week’s pay on gambling, booze and sex. Seems to be perfectly content with this life, and if he had any plans for the future at some point, he certainly has none now.

Vasquez is the stable hand who lives in the room above the stables, educated but bitter due to whatever violent history caused him to leave his hometown in Mexico and wind up working on some ranch in California. Mostly isolated from the rest except for Faraday (because Faraday is morally opposed to leaving anything or anyone well enough alone).

And Red arrives last - he left the exceptionally desperate circumstances on his reservation and struck out in search of something, anything less grim. Forms an immediate connection with Sam (their ability to converse in Comanche comes in handy during the murder plot), and spends a lot of time in silent contemplation of life with Horne. Denali, one of Bogue’s lieutenants, takes an immediate dislike to him, mostly because Red doesn’t bother to conceal his complete contempt for Denali.

…no, no I can’t do it. I can’t do the tragic ending of either Mag7 or “Of Mice and Men”. The plot is successful. McCann, Denali, and the rest of Bogue’s toadies either get killed or run off. Faraday gets exploded only a little bit. Sam shoots Bogue down by the river and Emma finishes him off. The people of the nearby town pointedly do not investigate or make any arrests because they hated Bogue too. Emma collects on his life insurance, buys the ranch from the company that owns it, and they all live together happily ever after, the end. (Until World War II comes around.)


	12. Goody/Billy, Jane Eyre AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not!fic partially inspired by [Poemsingreenink](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poemsingreenink/pseuds/Poemsingreenink).

In the morning, Billy watches Goody subtly adjust his seat in the saddle for the third time in an hour. _Reader, I fucked him,_ Billy thinks to himself, and smirks.

(Jane Eyre was published in 1847 so they totally could have read it.)

(And now I'm just thinking of the Brontë AU with Goody as the brooding master of the manor with dark secrets and Billy as the immigrant tutor hired to instruct Goody’s ward and god _dammit_ why do I do this to myself)

(Sam Chisolm plays the Blanche Ingram role here, except less toxic: He thinks Goody’s plan to make his newly-hired and incredibly handsome/smart/talented Korean tutor fall in love with him by bringing Sam and the rest of the Seven to the manor for a massive party and spending most of said party flirting with Sam / insinuating that he’s engaged to Sam, in order to make said tutor jealous, to be an _absolutely boneheaded and idiotic_ plan but hey, he’s got to support his bro)

(Haven’t quite figured out what the Dark Gothic Secret is: something to do with The Owl? Is Bogue involved in a dark plot somehow?)

(Also this takes place on a vaguely ahistorical former plantation in Louisiana - like, maybe most of Goody’s family dies due to the Civil War? Instead of going out West afterwards this Goody goes back to New Orleans to maintain the family holdings, what’s left of them, manages to build the wealth back up to a level appropriate for a Brontë-esque romance, and the story proceeds from there)

(Billy does his daily kata out on the front lawn every morning with Goody’s ward (whom I have decided is still named Adèle). Goody absolutely lies to Billy about just how long he’s spent getting up early just to watch from his bedroom window.)

\--------------

Once again, this is all really just an excuse to picture the actors dressed in sumptuous period costumes. Like for a grand New Orleans ball. Goody, Sam, Faraday, Matthew and Teddy Q in full white tie and tails. Vasquez in a splendid black and silver charro suit. Jack in his military dress uniform, Red in full fringed and beaded buckskin with intricately painted designs on his arms and face. Leni's in light pink silk, while Emma's in a vividly green silk ball gown, gorgeous birds-of-paradise amid a sea of black-and-white sparrows.

And Billy in a stunning high-collared, scarlet silk jacket embroidered in black and gold. Cut to show off his tapering waist, flaring around him for freedom of movement and dramatic effect. Goody presented it to him (along with trousers, fine marcella shirt, silk stockings, and patent leather dress shoes) via an unassuming parcel left just outside Billy's door with an unsigned note in Goody's hand requesting that he wear the ensemble at the ball that evening.

Since at this point Goody is still pretending that he's engaged to Sam, this is a massively mixed signal for Billy, who toys with the idea of not showing up at all. But in the end, he goes - and gets snagged by one of the house staff before he can slip in through a side door to the ballroom, who marches him around to the front entrance where the butler actually announces him like a real guest, full Korean name and all. 

Sam's the only one standing close enough to see Goody full-on choke on his own spit at the sight of Billy coming up the grand staircase, all but glowing in the gas light, long hair braided and pinned up with an elaborate silver hairpin inlaid with tiny rubies. Luminous in that rich, bloody shade of red. He truly looks like the darkly handsome, mysterious and dangerous prince-assassin he was once raised to become. The effect is nothing short of magnificent.

Goody's mostly composed himself by the time the very bemused Billy makes it to the top of the stairs, but there's just no disguising the flame in his blue eyes, the color high in his cheeks, the ardent way he presses Billy's hand between his own hands for just a shade longer than propriety ought to allow. Billy would never admit even under the most refined of tortures that his heart starts beating faster and he gets a little fluttery inside as a teasingly slow second ticks by, and then another - but that is indeed what happens. 

And he would never admit that it's like being doused with ice water when Goody finally lets go and Sam steps forward to greet him - still playing the role of the fiancé - forcefully reminding him once again of the hopelessness of the infatuation he's been nursing for the past few months. Lifelong practice allows him to keep his thoughts wholly from his face as he exchanges pleasantries with Sam and then as he goes off to join the throng in the ballroom (and to track down Adèle to make sure the child isn't getting herself into (more) trouble in all the excitement and bustle).

Goody doesn't stop himself from watching Billy walk away, devouring the graceful form with eyes and imagination shamelessly wallowing in the basest of avarice until Sam says, deliberately mildly, "You want to keep this silly charade up and make it convincing for more than five minutes at a time, you'll have to try a mite harder than that."

"I know, I know," Goody says, because he does know. "But you saw what I saw. Can you really fault me?"

"He does look good in red, I’ll give you that."

"’Course he does. Commissioned that jacket myself, from the best seamstress in this whole damned town."

"And spared no expense, no doubt," Sam says as dry as the desert he's lately returned from. "I thought I detected the stamp of your particular brand of dandyish fop on him when he came in."

Goody laughs. "You're lucky my Mama taught me it was bad manners to rough up guests in front of my other guests, no matter how trying they might be to your patience. Not the gentlemanly thing to do, she said, God rest her etiquette-bound soul."

The butler picks that moment to announce Jack and Leni Horne. After the required embraces, cheek kisses, handshakes, and solicitous inquiries about the carriage ride over, Sam turns back to Goody. "Would it buy your forgiveness if I told you that hair pin came from me?"

Goody blinks. "You...what?"

"It was my grandmother's. One of the pieces in her marriage dowry," Sam says, with that peculiar lack of expression that his face settles upon whenever he talks about his departed family, and Goody puts a hand on his shoulder in silent sympathy. 

After a moment, Sam continues. "Happened to see that jacket when I dropped in on your seamstress a week ago, charmed her into telling me who it was for, and thought of that pin right away. So I sent for it. Arrived just this morning, in fact.” He smiles, the briefest flash of white teeth. “Had it smuggled in with Billy and Adèle’s breakfast tray. He thinks it’s from you.”

“Sam,” Goody starts, voice rough. “I don’t— you didn’t—” He has to stop, clear his throat, try again. “There are times you make me wish we were engaged in truth.”

Sam looks away. “That ship sailed a long time ago, you know that, Goody.”

“I know,” Goody sighs, because once again, he does.


	13. Goody/Billy, Regency AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not!fic inspired by Fontainebleau's dancing story ["Take Your Partners!"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9333905) and the glorious mental image of Goody and Billy promenading around and around each other in a Regency-era country dance, hands lightly touching and sexual tension thick enough to cut between them. (I would kill to see Billy with seed pearls nestled in his black hair, but that's probably a step too far even for an AU.)

Goodnight Robicheaux, son of nobility, heir to twenty thousand a year, rebels and runs off to join the army. He returns years later, having made a fearsome reputation for himself in the Napoleonic Wars, with a dark-eyed companion in tow, the mysterious Billy Rocks: soldier of fortune.

Goody and Billy meet near the end of the Peninsular War when Billy, sensing the comprehensive defeat of the Grande Armée from about a million miles away, defects to coalition forces. And by meet, I mean that Goody breaks up a massive brawl between soldiers from like six different armies and finds Billy in the middle (of course). They fall in love, they come back to London with the army and the Duke of Wellington to be fêted as victors and make Goody’s family VERY uncomfortable with how clearly they’re living in sin and how clearly nobody can do anything about it. Billy moves in with Goody in his London townhome - swords, knives, muddy boots, long black hair bound up with silver pins, and all. The rigidly respectable Robicheaux clan most decidedly does NOT approve.

(“God’s sake, Goodnight, a bloody mercenary? A COMMONER? You couldn’t have selected a nice minor baron or some inconsequential lordling for your first torrid affair?”)

It’s the talk of the London season, and to Goody’s dismay, does nothing whatsoever to lessen his appeal among the young ladies of his set; in fact, they seem to think the whole story, and his strikingly handsome companion, are wildly romantic, and they spend every ball positively smothered in white lace and fluttering fans. Billy thinks the whole thing is bizarre and hilarious, and makes Goody and himself attend in their flashiest uniforms just to watch the younger ones swoon and the older ones pinch their mouths together in the vinegariest expressions ever seen, at least since the last scandal. That is, up to the point where he gets abruptly fed up and drags Goody out of their clutches and behind a potted plant somewhere…

Sam Chisolm is a free black man who leaves the fledgling US for England because, well, slavery sucks and it’s banned in England. Sam enlists in the British Army and is, of course, a badass at being a soldier. He and Goody meet while fighting in the Peninsular War, become fast friends, save each other’s lives, Sam pulls Goody out of some pretty dark spots, et cetera.

Vasquez is a Spanish guerilla fighter that they picked up in the same campaign when they rescued him from an ambush gone wrong. Faraday is (of course) a gambling drunken Irish trick shooter who got kicked out of basically everything and almost got kicked out of the army until Sam intervened. Jack Horne is a quiet country squire with a fistful of honors and medals from previous wars that nobody knows about. 

Red Harvest…shows up on a ship one day, because his elders told him his path was different and he _really_ took that to heart. He falls in with our band of rakes and warriors through a series of weird coincidences and happenstances that I won’t bother to make up because the entire point of this exercise isn’t minimally-researched historical backstory, it’s to stick all seven of our heroes into cravats and neckties and plunge them into the absolutely merciless waters of a Regency ballroom.

(Except Red. Red doesn’t do cravats. Or neckties. He is 1000% the most popular man in that ballroom that night, which is understandable but still impressive, since this is a party with Billy, Vasquez and Sam in it, any one of whom would have made quite the stir by themselves. All of them together? The hostess of the party - one Lady Emma Cullen - manages to coast on this absolute triumph of a social coup for _months.)_


	14. Crossover, The Good The Bad The Weird

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> GIF from "The Good The Bad The Weird" uploaded and posted by [transperceneige](https://lazaefair.tumblr.com/post/179962610572/transperceneige-%EC%A2%8B%EC%9D%80-%EB%86%88-%EB%82%98%EC%81%9C-%EB%86%88-%EC%9D%B4%EC%83%81%ED%95%9C-%EB%86%88-the-good) on Tumblr.

[](https://imgur.com/L6CJmWf)

“Nice trick you got there, buckaroo,” Sam drawls in his slowest possible drawl, eyeing Park from head to toe as they regroup behind a ridge. The lanky bastard’s barely even out of breath after a shoot-out in a train and a running gun battle with the bandits they’re chasing. Goody, who’s heard that particular lilt in Sam’s voice before, wonders if he needs to start ducking from his own damn side.

But—

“You not so bad yourself, waeguk-saram,” Park drawls right back, and eyeing Sam right back. He certainly doesn’t need to be caressing the barrel of his rifle in quite so obscene a fashion in order to reload, in Goody’s professional opinion.

Billy, for his part, appears to be wholly focused on checking his gun over in a far more sensible fashion, but Goody can tell he’s smirking around the eyes. At least his chéri gets to get a kick out of watching someone else’s trainwreck for once.

“Gonna have to teach me that one,” Sam says.

“Can teach you more than that,” Park says.

“Just gonna...reload elsewhere,” Goody says, vaguely gesturing into the distance. He catches Billy’s eye.

“The next state over,” Billy adds, and they edge away. Neither of their intrepid leaders notice even a little bit. Ah, well. It was high time Sam settled down, anyway.

\-------------------------------

_Inspired by[this glorious post](https://lazaefair.tumblr.com/post/180051967617/these-boots-are-100-stolen) by Poemsingreenink._

“I will find the finest ivory-handled tortoiseshell comb money can buy and personally brush your hair with my own hands every night. One hundred strokes every night, that’s what my mama and sisters used to say, and they had hair like rippling waterfalls of the finest silk in the land, I thought, ‘til I met you. I promise I’ll do it, cher. I will absolutely fall on that sword for you.”

“Rather have you stroking something else,” Billy says, scowling, but he doesn’t throw away the comb that mysteriously appears in his personal effects in the next town, either, and Goody will take that as a win.

Billy eventually comes around on it when he notices Chang-yi staring jealously at the two of them across the campfire as Goody brushes Billy’s hair, one hundred strokes as promised. Looking absolutely murderous is de rigeuer for Chang-yi, but there’s an undeniably envious tinge to his glare this time that puts the tiniest smile on Billy’s face as he stares right back.

“I can feel you being smug at him,” Goody murmurs under his breath. Billy doesn’t reply, just closes his eyes and stretches like a cat under Goody’s hands, openly nuzzling into his touch, and Chang-yi nearly slices himself open on the knife he’s sharpening.

(Sam is seriously considering making the three of them move to a campfire of their own. At least until they work out whatever the fuck is going on between them. It’s giving him tension headaches, and he’s far too old for that shit.)


	15. Goody/Billy, photographer AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Photo posted by [reluctantlylbh](https://lazaefair.tumblr.com/post/184625164677/reluctantlylbh-im-in-love-with-this) on Tumblr.

[](https://imgur.com/H5Fv8of)

“Seriously, Goody, what the fuck—”

“Hush, Billy. This is all a part of the artistic process, which is altogether an exceedingly delicate, complicated thing. We’re, uh…nurturin’ the creative energies. Together.”

Goody’s expression of extreme fatuousness would be flawless, if it weren’t for the near-invisible twitch in the corner of his insufferable lips. Billy blows out a sigh and slouches back in the chair with only a medium-level eye roll, giant fabric rabbit ears waving gently above his head with the movement.

“…you know you’re _really_ lucky I love you.”


	16. Goody/Billy, bondage (T)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by [this mind-melting sketch](https://lazaefair.tumblr.com/post/182206167412/poemsingreenink-lazaefair) of a gagged and bound Billy, by whereverigobillygoes. Sketch is very mildly NSFW.

> [@poemsingreenink](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poemsingreenink/pseuds/Poemsingreenink): So does that mean that when Billy finally relaxes into this, because of the insane levels of trust, Billy sinks so deep that it possibly freaks Goody out? 

It’s like he’s gone underwater, like he’s turned _into_ water. Goody doesn’t truly comprehend just how much tension Billy had permanently knotted into his muscles until it’s temporarily gone.

They don’t do this very often, because when Billy's in his right mind - when he hasn't yet reached that place that feels like a waking dream - the thought of just how gone, just how vulnerable he is, makes his scalp tighten and his fists clench. When his very mind is disarmed of its quickness, of its killing capabilities, and he can't— But sometimes.

Sometimes he just needs to be made to let go of - everything. Because if he doesn’t—

“Cher?”

Billy slouches on the narrow bed and exhales smoke on a long, tremoring breath. Thinks about how close it’d come to escaping today, out in the paddock under the pitiless sun. The dragon he keeps locked away in an iron box, padlocked with layers upon layers of control, because if it ever gets loose—

Rough fingers close around the hand with the cigarette, and Billy opens his eyes to see Goody gently lifting the stub away before it burns down to his skin.

“Billy?”

He closes his eyes again. Straightens up, crosses his wrists behind his back, listens to Goody’s quietly startled inhale. And gives the last command he’ll give this evening: “Lock the door, Goody.”


	17. Goody/Billy, Rogue One AU

“Chisolm sent us to recruit you for the Rebellion, but he didn’t say anything about your friend over here.”

Goodnight’s smile vanishes and he leans forward, to the consternation of the Toydarian hovering over him with a laser clipper. The ex-Inquisitor’s eyes glint hard and blue, chips of ice completely out of place on the arid sands of Tatooine. Says quietly, “Wherever I go, Billy goes.”

Teddy Q swallows and shifts in his seat, eyes flickering over to Billy’s impassive form. Who hasn’t moved a muscle, but something about him recalls the unnatural stillness he’d displayed earlier, his fluttering red under-robe the only movement about him - seconds before he gutted an Aqualish challenger with nothing but a durasteel hairpin. Teddy swallows again.

“Yes, sir.”

Goodnight leans back again, slowly. “We understand each other.”

“Well,” Faraday says loudly, breaking the tension with all the grace of a newborn bantha calf, “day-and-a-half hyperspace run to Junction Station. We got two days.” He signals for a server with a wide grin. “Let’s do half a day of drinking.”

Goodnight’s eyebrows fly up, but he points at the smuggler with an amiable finger. “I…like you.” And he laughs.


	18. Goody/Billy, after a battle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by [this prompt](https://lazaefair.tumblr.com/post/171369193922/your-otp-tightly-embracing-after-narrowly): _Your OTP tightly embracing after narrowly surviving a perilous battle. As Person A pulls away, they find their hands soaked crimson with blood that isn’t theirs. Person B can only mutter an “oops” before leaning against a wall and sinking to the ground, finally realizing how much blood they lost._

“You poker-faced son of a bitch, why’d you have to pick now to get all death-door dramatic? Jesus wept, Billy—” It’s a different kind of panic clawing at Goody’s throat now, buzzing in his ears with a thousand fearful voices, making his hands shake as he tears off Billy’s vest. “Fuck, oh _fuck,”_ that’s a gut shot wound, and the gold of Billy’s skin has gone sallow and waxy, and— “Sam! Red! Get the fuck over here!” and he’s seen so many men die this way, die right in his arms, oh god, oh god—

The silent whoosh of the owl’s wing arrives at the same time Sam does - hands on him, hands pulling him away - tawny feathers falling all around Billy’s open eyes, dark and pained as he fixes them on Goody.

“Goody. It’s all right. Goody. I’m here. Goody, it’s okay,” he hears as if from the end of a long tunnel, but all he can do is stare, and shake.

“Goodnight.”

He blinks. Billy and Sam and the owl vanish from his field of vision, replaced instead with Red’s face. The warrior’s planted himself right in front of Goody and shoved a knife and roll of cloth in his hands.

“Bandages. Now. You make bandages.”

Goody stares at him a moment more, but Red looks nothing like anybody in his nightmares. Especially not with that fierce expression, or the small pot of salve he’s waving in Goody’s face.

“You cut, I smear. Deal?”

He wants to go screaming back into panic, the low voice of the owl rolling like distant thunder on the edges of his mind. But— “Deal.”


	19. Goody/Chang-yi, The Good The Bad The Weird

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by Kennel_Boy's [The Good The Bad The Weird AU](https://2016mag7.dreamwidth.org/15264.html?thread=63136#cmt63136) in which Billy Rocks gets reincarnated into Park Chang-yi. Goodnight gets reincarnated into, well, Goodnight.

Chang-yi gets into position in the embassy library just barely ahead of Goody. He’s pulling his leather gloves on when he hears voices and footsteps in the hallway, and he’s only just dropped into a heavy armchair when the door knob begins to turn.

“...just through here, gentlemen,” Goody’s saying as he opens the door, gesturing the marks inside with extravagant hand gestures and smiles all around. Chang-yi allows himself the thinnest silk thread of a moment to take him in: the slicked-back hair and the clean-shaven line of his jaw, fragrant and sharp in a close-cut three-piece suit that hugs his body in exactly the way that makes Chang-yi want to slash the entire ensemble into perfect ribbons without inflicting even a single scratch to the skin underneath.

He draws in a breath, then makes himself focus on the marks, who still haven’t seen him half-hidden in a shadowed corner. Goody’s bustling around them, pouring drinks and handing out cigars, still talking (and talking, and talking). So it takes a few minutes for one of the marks to turn his head just the right way, and then—

“Holy _fucking_ Christ!”

“Ah, yes,” Goody says. Their heads whip back around to stare at him right as he finishes locking the door with a decisive click. “Mr. Lamarr, Mr. Taggart, I’d like for you to meet my associate, Mr. Park.”

“What is the meaning of this, Robicheaux!” Lamarr barks.

“It means you’re going to give us what we want,” Chang-yi says.

Taggart and Lamarr startle just as violently as they did the first time. Chang-yi raises an eyebrow, but otherwise doesn’t move from his position: slouched down low, legs sprawled wide, whiskey in one hand and favorite butterfly knife dangling from the other.

“As the esteemed gentleman said,” Goody says, and smiles with all his teeth. “Let us begin negotiations, shall we?”


	20. Goody/Billy, bodyswap

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Commentfic](https://lazaefair.dreamwidth.org/8512.html?thread=16448#cmt16448) in which Poemsingreenink shamelessly aided and abetted.

> @poemsingreenink:
> 
> I’m still shocked no one has done the Goody & Billy body swap fic. Just Billy is so graceful I tend to think it’s because he knows his own body so well, and thrown into Goodnight’s it’s just…”Not my body! Why is this!? What the hell is this? My hands are not my hands!”
> 
> And Goodnight just keeps turning around like a puppy chasing his tail because “Look! Look at me! Billy!! Look!!”

Billy is super upset and disturbed…until he realizes this is literally the opportunity of a lifetime.

“Oh, no, cher, you _wouldn’t.”_

“Oh, yes, _cher,_ I would.”

Seeing Billy’s knife-edged Smirk of Doom expressed on his own face - Goody is pretty sure he’s never once stretched his mouth out quite so thinly, and his blue eyes have never looked quite so icy as they do when glinting out of Billy’s distinctive narrowed stare - is pretty disturbing in its own right. But that’s before Billy opens his mouth and says in Goody’s own voice,

“Yes, Goody. I’m going to make your body _eat a salad for lunch.”_

(He also takes Goody’s body to the gym and dojo every day that week, much to Goody’s extreme consternation. So now there’s a whole group of gym rats and fighters across town - Billy at least had the sense to go to different places from his regular haunts to avoid inconvenient questions - who think Goodnight Robicheaux is an incredibly badass martial artist.)

> @poemsingreenink:
> 
> Oh my god yes!!! Stealth health! He’s drinking green juice smoothies in the morning, and going for runs. Except it also backfired because Goodnight in Billy’s body shows up with McDonalds and “Jesus Goodnight! Do you know what I do to get those abs!? Put those French fries down!”

“So help me, I’m gonna get sodium and saturated fats into this body if it kills me.”

“It’s not _you_ that you’re killing! Give me that!”

Unfortunately for Billy, his mind might retain the astonishing mental speed and fighting skill, but he’s occupying a body that’s a bit more chronically injured and creaky (and fond of drinking) than he’s used to. Whereas Goody’s currently occupying a body in the absolute peak of physical fitness and reflexive conditioning, with a mind that’s still got more training than most civilians.

The upshot is that suddenly Billy’s experiencing a sliver of a glimpse of how people must feel all the time around him, as Goody skips backwards with uncharacteristic agility. Waving a French fry in the air, sing-songing taunts in that Cajun accent that’s somehow even more incomprehensible in baritone.

It is intensely, _intensely_ annoying. 

In the end, though, skill and daily practice win out and he manages to tackle Goody to the living room carpet. Fries and ketchup packets go flying, they’re both laughing as they play-wrestle - and then Billy dips his head down and kisses Goody out of pure force of habit. 

They both freeze. Billy’s profoundly weirded out at the sight of Goody’s sly half-grin lifting the corner of his own mouth, making his rightful face look like a totally different person. (Which he technically _is_ at this moment, to be fair.)

“Well, this is awkward,” Goody drawls.

“Yes, but don’t pretend you’re not thinking what I’m thinking,” Billy dismisses, and dives in for more.

(Sam doesn’t stop laughing for a solid ten minutes when he drops in unexpectedly - he’d been researching counter-spells for the hex they got hit with - and catches them rolling around half-naked on the carpet. Both clearly very turned on, but also taking turns asking each other, “Wait, is _that_ what I look like when you do that? Jesus Christ.”)


	21. Billy/Goody, Bodyguard/Modern Royalty AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can blame Poemsingreenink for this one. Again.

[](http://i.imgur.com/ggEtqwY)

Goodnight Robicheaux is totally a suitable name for a prince of some tiny made-up European country, and Billy Rocks is a transparently fake name perfect for an ex-military security specialist hired by dear old Mum and Dad to keep wild child Goody out of (too much) trouble as he dashes from country to country in classic jet-setting style.

Goody, for his part, is used to having highly attractive bodyguards who either don’t respond to his incorrigible flirting or actively (if politely) shut him down - it doesn’t bother him at all. It’s really just a long-running and idly entertaining game, at this point, given that he certainly doesn’t lack for willing partners who aren’t risking their professional livelihoods if they get with him. 

This one, though. This one’s different. This one - flirts back. Watches Goody with a burning glint in his eyes, the faintest controlled wisp of a smile on his lips, knowing exactly the effect his face and his body and the way he moves, god, are having on Goody. Touches Goody far more than is warranted by the dictates of his job. Curls his tongue around Goody’s name with a low, dark enjoyment that’s actually keeping Goody up nights, which hasn’t happened since he was fucking fourteen and in the raging grip of puberty.

Except - Billy won’t follow through. He’ll take them right up to the edge, to where he’s literally pinned Goody to the wall of whatever ridiculously opulent penthouse suite they’re living in at the moment, sealed together knees to groin to chest, breathing each other’s air, hot and sweating with the desire writhing thickly between them like a living thing. And then he’ll just - walk away. Every time. And it’s driving Goody fucking _wild._


	22. Billy/Goody, Send Nudes (M)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Headcanon/commentfic inspired by little_ogre’s [Send Nudes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19241107), and [subsequent headcanoning by little_ogre and Poemsingreenink.](https://2016mag7.dreamwidth.org/32602.html)

What if Goody drags Billy to the next halfway-decent photography studio they come across (probably in one of the larger cities) and pays out of his own pocket for a similar set of French Postcards of Billy? (“It’s only fair, cher!”)

Billy finds the resulting portraits to be a little disconcerting - it’s a wholly alien experience to be objectified quite like that, to be treated as the subject for either art or lust, and to have that experience preserved forever so that other people could see him like that even after he and Goody have died and taken their memories with them.

But on the other hand: Goody’s reaction to the photos makes it all worth it. All of it.

> @poemsingreenink:
> 
> Oh man!! I could see Billy as a guy who sees his body as the ultimate tool. Like he’s alive because he’s got fast feet and his hands are merciless with knives m, and hand to hand fighting. Good eyes for a quick draw. Healthy in a way that he can ride hard. And yes there’s pleasure in the body but that tends to be a private alone/with Goodnight thing.
> 
> And this is so weird because is this pleasure? It’s his body. He likes his body. Goodnight likes it. What does he think about this? Does he consider himself art? What would that be like?

And compound that with him being more accustomed to people treating him with hostility, revulsion, disdain, or indifference to his physical appearance (or weird gross Orientalist fetishizing). It truly is an anomalous experience to be honestly desired, not with “You’re beautiful for a barbarian/Chinaman/alien” but with “You’re beautiful,” full stop. And by a white man, no less.

I think Billy’d be weirded out about being photographed naked, but it’s maybe the first time he starts to even entertain the notion that he could be considered good-looking, let alone unusually good-looking. He examines himself a little more closely in mirrors, now, trying to see what Goody sees.

As for his photographs, they live in Goody’s saddlebags, pressed in a book so they don’t get bent, carefully wrapped up and placed with his most prized possessions. And Goody’s photographs, the ones that started this all off…it took Billy a while to ask for them to keep, but when he did, Goody’s response - delayed until after they’d bedded down that night - still brings heat flushing to Billy’s cheeks at the memory. 

(Blindfolded, down on his knees and elbows, Goody hissing poetic, desirous filth into his ear in a smooth, arrogant drawl, caressing him while wearing buttery-soft kid leather gloves that hid the calluses on his hands - Billy could believe for a scorching, endless moment that it was indeed the young, cavalier, devastatingly handsome Goody behind and over and inside him. Taking him apart almost carelessly, an entitled sort of possessiveness in his touch that infuriated Billy at the same time it drove him absolutely fucking _mad._

Goody shed the ghost of his past self as fast as he could in the aftermath, taking the blindfold off and smoothing salve onto parts made tender by their frenzied coupling. Raining apologetic kisses all over Billy’s skin, eyes strained around the edges. Billy never asked him to do it again. 

But he had his answer, at least: no, he and the young Goody would not have been friends. But they would’ve been drawn together all the same. And there’s - there’s some small measure of relief in that.)

[](http://i.imgur.com/4QfsVCb)


	23. Goody/Billy, College Students AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by [Harvestingred, Poemsingreeink, and iwritesometimes.](https://lazaefair.tumblr.com/post/186006222982/poemsingreenink-iwritesometimes)

The only reason why Goodnight isn’t currently fleecing drunk regulars out of their small change at the Tavern’s one dilapidated pool table is because he has a fucking Friday evening class this semester that Billy won’t let him skip. By the time he and Billy arrive, Faraday’s already (loudly) holding court over it, with the rest of their friends (mostly Vasquez) egging him on shamelessly.

“At least this way he won’t be hitting us up for beer money tonight,” Billy murmurs into Goody’s ear under the noise of all the cheers, heckling, and karaoke caterwauling coming from the other end of the room. He’s sitting sideways in Goody’s lap, legs sprawled out carelessly onto the wooden pew-style bench that runs the length of the wall opposite of the bar. 

From here, Goody can see both doors and most of the Tavern’s tiny space - and what he can’t see, he knows Billy will. Pressed down warm and safe into their usual back corner, glass of bourbon in hand, body still loose and thrumming from the positively filthy blowjob Billy bestowed upon him as a reward for attending his fucking Friday evening class - let’s just say he’s feeling pretty good. Magnanimous, even.

“S’long as he don’t make it a regular habit,” he says.

“We don’t actually have any personal right to the pool table, you know.”

“Yeah, we do. Called dibs on this territory way back sophomore year, remember? There’s supposed to be _honor_ amongst con artists,” Goody says, just to feel Billy smile against his cheek at his absurdity.

_[bonus tags from iwritesometimes:](https://iwritesometimes.tumblr.com/post/186006399664/lazaefair-poemsingreenink-iwritesometimes)_  
#emma swears she hates karaoke but 100% be over on the machine after a couple more drinks  
#faraday WILL eventually mount the table and attempt to do a strip tease  
#while vasquez throws the same three dollar bills over and over  
#red drinks teddy q under the table - a weekly tradition

_[and from poemsingreenink:](https://poemsingreenink.tumblr.com/post/186006876984/lazaefair-poemsingreenink-iwritesometimes)_  
#emma always picks come to my window for singing  
#the only song red will sing is tequila  
#sam will eventually shove faraday away to start beer pong


End file.
